All out war in the 'city with no windows'

Days after being sanctioned by Vladimir Putin's cronies, having met Ukraine's new army leadership and toured its secret drone factories, Lord Ashcroft files an exclusive dispatch for the Daily Express from the embattled country

- Lord Ashcroft

IT IS known affectionately by Ukrainian soldiers as “the city with no windows”. As I apprehensively entered the deserted streets of Lyman under military escort, it was easy to see why. With the explosions from incoming Russian artillery fire worryingly close, there was barely a building that had not been destroyed or badly damaged – and not an unbroken window in sight.

More than two years into this brutal all-out war, Lyman is probably the most damaged city of those which remain under Ukrainian control, having been first seized by the invading Russians in the spring of 2022 and later recaptured. Yet the chilling news for the small number of locals who remain in this eastern Ukrainian city is that senior military sources have told me Russia now considers Lyman, and its neighbouring cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, as its “number one target” as it seeks to expand its occupied territory in the Donetsk Oblast province.

As if the residents of Lyman did not have enough problems already with regular missile and artillery attacks, three inches of snow on the ground, night-time temperatures as low as -15C and no running water or central heating. This city is the very definition of human misery but also human resilience.

At one of two small city supermarkets in the centre of Lyman, I talked to locals who had braved the nearby fighting to buy food from well-stocked shelves. One of them, Victoria Melnik, 43, said she had remained in the city where she was born throughout all the fighting of the past two years.

“It has been very sad to see the city I love destroyed. It’s hard to accept. I thought about leaving but my son, who is 23, wanted to stay and I would not leave without him.”

Endurance